Life Is a Bumpy, Messy Thing

Clearly, this woman is meant to be an early childhood teacher.

Clearly, this woman is meant to be in the early childhood field.

When my parents came to visit over the Thanksgiving holiday, we discussed the long and expensive path I took that ended with a degree in elementary education. You see, my high school guidance counselor encouraged me to go into another area of study instead of teaching since teaching jobs in Michigan were difficult to come by at the time. Thus I ended up majoring in physical therapy at a college known for its medical-related programs. Two years into the program, I realized that this just wasn’t for me. (Organic chemistry courses helped me come to this realization.) So I went back to my first choice—teaching. Then I changed schools. By the time I actually graduated, I had amassed a huge number of college credits. (I often joke that, with one more semester, I would also be qualified to conduct an orchestra, lead an archeological expedition, and perform brain surgery—all in addition to being an early childhood educator.)

Did your path to teaching have a few bumps in it? If you’re studying to be a teacher right now, has it been a smooth journey? Or is your path similar to mine?

All the best!

Kim

 

 

 


One thought on “Life Is a Bumpy, Messy Thing

  1. I was “not college material” according to my HS counselor, so my schedule reflected one who was destined to be a secretary, get married and have babies. Two weeks before classes were to begin, my neighbor convinced my parents that I needed to go to his Tech College and get a computer programming degree in order to bring my father’s plumbing business into the computer age. FORTRAN, Cobalt and many other computer programing classes later I graduated with an associate’s degree. I went to the local university just to see if I was college material and 3 years later graduated with a BA K-9 grade degree. I later interviewed with that very same counselor (now as a principal) and felt quite smug knowing he was the one that told me I wasn’t “college material” and I was sitting there with my Master’s Degree in Reading/Learning Disabilities.

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